This 15-year-old just won big at the Google Science Fair for his disease-fighting invention

Anurudh Ganesan took home the LEGO Education Builder
Award for his refrigerated vaccine
transporter.Melia Robinson/Tech
Insider

When he was six months old, Anurudh Ganesan experienced
first-hand the difference a vaccine can make in the lives of
those who need it.

His grandparents carried him across 10 miles of remote terrain in
India, the country of Ganesan's birth, so that he could receive a
polio vaccination. Upon arriving, they learned that the
vaccinations were no longer effective.

"I was fortunate," Ganesan tells Tech Insider, since he avoided
getting polio despite being unvaccinated at the time. "For many,
that trek to be vaccinated is a matter of life and death."

Monday, we caught up with the 15-year-old high school student at
the fifth annual Google Science Fair, a global competition and
celebration of innovation, where he took home the LEGO Education
Builder Award.

His invention, the
VAXXWAGON, is a portable refrigeration system that enables
doctors to transport vaccines safely and effectively. No ice or
electricity required.

VAXXWAGON Phase IIIMelia
Robinson/Tech Insider

Often in developing countries, where proper medical attention may
exceed a day's travel, vaccines are transported from hospitals to
remote villages on foot, bicycle, motorcycle, or pack animal.
These journeys, referred to as "last-leg" vaccine transportation,
can last 15 miles or more.

In order to be safe and effective, vaccines must maintain a
"Goldilocks temperature" between
2 and 8 degrees Celsius — similar to a very cold refrigerator
— from the time they leave the manufacturers to the moment they
reach the patient. Hospitals will package the vaccine on ice, but
this can easily backfire if the ice is too cold and freezes the
vials, or if it melts before the vaccine reaches its destination.

Having heard the story of his grandparents' odyssey since he was
an infant, Ganesan felt heartbroken when he learned that 1.5 million children
died in 2008 from vaccine-preventable diseases.

So, he did what any science-loving hacker would do: He broke
things.

VAXXWAGON Phase IIMelia
Robinson/Tech Insider

"I took a refrigerator apart," Ganesan says. "I saw how it
worked, and tried to re-engineer it so that it used no
electricity and no ice to provide accurate refrigeration of
vaccines while in transport."

Phase II of the VAXXWAGON, as he named his device, looks like a
Rube Goldberg-inspired mouse trap affixed to a wooden plank on
wheels. A large plastic thermos sits in the center.

Cherry-picking bits of research from the labs of Princeton
University professor Winston Soboyejo and Northwestern University
student Rogers Feng, Ganesan realized that he could power a
refrigeration system with mechanical power, rather than
electricity. A health care worker may hitch the VAXXWAGON's
trailer to his bike, and cool the thermos with the power
generated by simply turning the wheels on the trailer as it's
pulled along.

The cooling apparatus in the wagon is powered by the human or
animal pulling it along. In its current iteration, the wagon uses
only a fraction of the power a bike-peddler would put out during
a trip.As a test, Ganesan
ran the VAXXWAGON on a treadmill at eight miles per hour for six
hours — racking up energy to power the refrigerator — and let it
rest for nearly five hours to collect data while the compressor
wasn't being powered. In this simulated last-leg of the trip, the
fake vaccines maintained a temperature in the Goldilocks range
for over four hours.

The cost to build it all? Roughly $100.

While Ganesan plans to redesign his prototype again and again,
making it easier to operate and more cost-efficient, he foresees
his VAXXWAGON being used around the globe one day. He's filed a
patent application and bought the domain name — well on his way
to becoming the next great disruptor.

And in the meantime, Ganesan has a bit of traveling to do. As
part of the LEGO Education Builder Award, he's been invited to
The LEGO Group headquarters in Billund, Denmark, for a
meet-and-greet with employees and a tour of the manufacturing
facilities. The prize package comes with some sweet souvenirs,
too: tickets to LEGOLAND Denmark, LEGO sets for his classroom,
and a custom LEGO brick designed by one of the LEGO Education
designers.

While at the mothership, Ganesan will link up with a LEGO
Education executive, who will serve as an entrepreneurial mentor
for six months.